The Investment Case for Gender Equality by Julie Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing

Imagine that some all-powerful, alien being issued a decree to all U.S. businesses that they may empower only half their workers, and must discriminate against the rest. And then, because that being is all-powerful, it jumped into the future to see how its experiment turned out. I’ll bet that in this fctional scenario the alien found that the U.S. struggled mightily to compete with more adept businesses in other countries. The World Economic Forum regards gender equality in the business environment to be part of labor market efficiency, one of twelve pillars of national economic competitiveness, and countries whose rankings drop are often flagged for gender inequality in labor markets.1

Sadly, this isn’t all science fction: discrimination against women—roughly half the workforce—is a fact, all over the world, and in some places more than KEY TAKEAWAYS others. But it’s possible that we will look back on 2017 and say “that was the year the needle moved.” Time’s Person of the Year was The Silence Breakers, Gender equality is not a zero-sum or women who spoke up about sexual harassment. 2017 was also the year game. Achieving gender equality that some of the largest asset managers on the planet began to vote against is a good thing for everyone. certain board members when the boards consisted only of men.2 The proportion Moreover, it’s good for business. of shareholders voting in favor of board diversity resolutions in 2017 averaged 31%, up from 26% in 2016.3 PriceWaterhouse, in its most recent annual corporate director survey, noted that “gender diversity on corporate Eliminating the gender gap boards has also become a clear priority for institutional investors in 2017.” would improve economic efficiency and could add $28 Gender diversity, it seems, has arrived as an investment issue. Yet across the trillion to global GDP. globe, with few exceptions, women are underrepresented in management, on corporate boards, and in better-paid technical professions. They are paid less than men for substantially equal work. They are discriminated against in ways Companies that include women ranging from the horrifc, like genital mutilation, to perniciously subtle, like among senior decision-makers unconscious bias. While correcting these imbalances would certainly beneft and provide equal opportunities women, gender equality is not a zero-sum game. Achieving gender equality to men and women, do better is a good thing for everyone. Moreover, it’s good for business, and than their competitors. good for investors.

1 Klaus Schwab, “The Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017,” World Economic Forum Insight Report, 2016. 2 See, for example, Emily Chasan, “After Fearless Girl, State Street Puts Men-Only Boards on Notice,” Bloomberg Markets, July 26, 2017; and Trevor Hunnicutt, “BlackRock supports effort to boost number of women board members,” , July 13, 2017. 3 “2017 Proxy Season Review,” Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, July 17, 2017.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 1 ECONOMIC IMPACT same fallacy as assuming that there cannot be a $20 bill on the sidewalk, because if there were, it would have An overwhelming body of research supports the business been picked up already. A wealth of literature shows case for gender equality. Starting at the macro level, that corporations that include women among senior management consulting frm McKinsey reported that decision-makers, eliminate pay gaps, and provide equal the global economy could be between $12 trillion and opportunities to men and women, actually do better $28 trillion larger in 2025 if gender gaps were reduced than their competitors.9 or eliminated.4 The lower fgure represents the potential if all countries matched the performance of the best country in their respective region in terms of eliminating gender THE COST OF GENDER BIAS gaps, and the higher fgure represents what could happen AND DISCRIMINATION if all gender gaps were eliminated. What does $28 trillion look like? It’s about the size of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. and China combined—which currently Just as greater equality can boost economic performance, rank frst and second on the global GDP list. discrimination can impair it. This point is particularly striking in a year when sexual harassment arrived as a In its 2016 gender gap report, the World Economic Forum mainstream issue. While the overall economic cost of notes that economic gender parity could add $240 billion discrimination and harassment is not known, it is likely to to the GDP of the UK, $1.2 trillion to that of the U.S., $526 be substantial, with reports of fgures like 80% of women billion to the GDP of Japan, and $285 billion to the GDP who have been harassed leaving their jobs within two of .5 The International Monetary Fund asserts years.10 The EEOC convened a special task force to that closing gender gaps is as much a part of economic illuminate the economic impact of harassment in the development as poverty reduction, and adds that greater workplace, and concluded that it is a persistent, often gender equality improves economic efficiency in three unreported, problem, but the economic toll of direct ways: improved productivity, using more household costs—the minority of cases that are reported and penalties resources to beneft children, and improved decision- are levied—came to $164.5 million in 2015.11 Moreover, and policy-making of institutions.6 that fgure might be far higher if harassed workers feel more empowered to report incidents; the EEOC reports The same principle applies domestically. Brookings notes that three of every four people experiencing harassment that “The U.S. economy will not operate at its full potential have never reported it. The penalties that are paid is money unless government and employers remove impediments down the drainpipe. In addition to the monetary penalties to full participation by women in the labor market… paid, the total cost is even greater if we think of the In fact, barriers to participation by women also act as opportunity cost, or opportunities foregone, due to brakes on the national economy, stifling the economy’s bias and discrimination. ability to grow.”7 These barriers are not isolated: legal barriers to economic development on the part of women But penalties for noncompliance with equal opportunity persist in every region, and in developed as well as statutes is probably a small part of the overall cost to developing economies, or to be specifc, in 155 of the the economy of discrimination and harassment. A report world’s 195 countries.8 on the impact of gender bias in society on GDP growth globally concluded that societies that have more gender Now let’s take a closer look at the world of corporations bias have lower per capita GDP.12 In the US, it is estimated and their investors. There is often an assumption that that harassment costs $4.4 million annually in lost wages13 corporations, being economic actors on a competitive and 973,000 hours of unpaid leave each year as a result stage, always act in their own self-interest as skilled of debilitating reactions to harassment. If we count the competitors are assumed to do, and thus if women are economic toll of subtle discrimination—discrimination that less well represented in senior and technical roles it must is rarely possible to prove, and thus rarely incurs penalties— be for solid fnancial or competitive reasons. That’s the the drag on the economy is worse. University researchers

4 McKinsey Global Institute, “How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth,” September 2015. 5 World Economic Forum, “The Global Gender Gap Report,” 2016. 6 Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty, International Monetary Fund, “Empowering Women Is Smart Economics,” Finance & Development, March 2012, Vol. 49, No. 1. 7 Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Ryan Nunn, “The 51%: Driving growth through women’s economic participation,” Brookings Institution, Thursday, October 19, 2017. 8 Rachel Vogelstein, “Let Women Work: The Economic Case for ,” Foreign Affairs, January-February 2018. 9 Visit Pax World’s Gender Research page for a list of studies on the relationship between gender diversity and corporate performance: https://paxworld.com/category/research/gender/ 10 Nilofer Merchant, “The Insidious Economic Impact of Sexual Harassment,” Harvard Business Review, November 29, 2017. 11 Chai R. Feldblum & Victoria A Lipnic, “Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace,” EEOC, June 2016. 12 Debasis Bandyopadhyay, “Gender Biased Institutions and the Wealth of Nations,” Social Science Research Network, February 24, 2017. 13 Equal Rights Advocates “Missing from the Women’s Agenda: The Threat of Sexual Violence at Work,” February 4, 2014.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 2 conducted a meta-analysis of all forms of discrimination, That fnding also applies to women in senior management. both blatant and subtle, and concluded that “the effects Companies with more women in senior management—even of subtle discrimination were at least as bad as, when “more” is limited to a single woman—outperformed if not worse than, overt discrimination.”14 the entire sample of over 3,000 companies in terms of share price from 2009 through mid-2016. In addition, the LEADERSHIP AND WORKFORCE share price performance for companies with more women in management was better than the performance of companies with fewer. The best-performing cohort was More equal gender balance in the places where corporate the group of companies with greater than 50 percent decisions are made—the boardroom and the executive women in senior management. suite—is associated with better fnancial outcomes.

GLOBAL PERFORMANCE: One of the most extensive studies that support the COMPANIES MARKET CAP >USD 10 BILLION case for gender equality is also one of the newest, from Credit Suisse Research Institute.15 This study looked at the impact of both board and executive diversity at over 3,000 companies globally, and found clear evidence that more women on boards and in senior management generated higher returns on equity, while still having more conservative balance sheets. That means that having more women decision makers is associated with improved returns without raising the risk. As investors, we expect to get higher returns if we take more risks; getting higher returns without paying for it in terms of heightened risk indicates a very robust source of value. Moreover, the companies in this group of 3,000 large companies16 with at least one woman on the board outperformed Source: Bloomberg, Credit Suisse Research, “The CS Gender 3000: The Reward for Change” 2016 the group with no women for over 10 years, from 2006 Past performance does not guarantee futures results. through mid-2016.

TOP-RANKED COMPANIES BASED ON THE In 2015, RobecoSAM looked at gender diversity across ROBECOSAM GENDER SCORE OUTPERFORM all organizational levels, constructing one portfolio of companies with low gender scores (lower proportions of women in the workforce and management, and higher pay disparity) and high gender scores.17 The companies in the portfolio with the top gender rankings outperformed the market over the decade between 2004 and 2014, and the highest-ranked companies outperformed the portfolio with the lowest gender score by an even greater margin.

Source: RobecoSAM, “Does Corporate Gender Equality Lead to Outperformance?” 2015

14 Eden King and Kristen Jones, “Why Subtle Bias Is So Often Worse than Blatant Discrimination,” Harvard Business Review, July 13,2016. 15 Credit Suisse Research Institute, “The CS Gender 3000: Reward for Change,” September 2016. 16 “Large companies” in this study, is defned as companies with a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion. 17 RobecoSAM, “Does corporate gender equality lead to outperformance?” 2015.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 3 “dramatically outperform” frms with homogeneous teams. SHARE PRICE PERFORMANCE FOR BASKETS Investing in companies with diverse teams and selling those WITH DIFFERENT TIERS OF FEMALE PARTICIPATION with homogeneous teams delivered a cumulative risk- IN SENIOR MANAGEMENT adjusted return of 60%, exceeding returns to momentum, proftability, asset growth and accrual strategies. Moreover, this style of investing “combines high returns with low volatility,” which yields a Sharpe Ratio20 (which measures risk-adjusted return) that dominated all other investment strategies considered.21

Outside of Europe and the US, some new work has also shown that better gender balance on boards is valuable fnancially. KPMG reported that Australian companies with more women on their boards achieved higher revenue growth, proftability and shareholder returns compared with companies with all-male boards. Moreover, while Source: Bloomberg, Credit Suisse Research, 22 “The CS Gender 3000: The Reward for Change” 2016 only 21 companies in the ASX 300+ had female CEOs, the 21 companies that did increased revenues by 9% in 2016, compared with 0.5% average for the entire group.23 New studies published in 2017 also showed that board But what about the ? There’s a widely-held or executive diversity improved fnancial performance belief that Europe is ahead of the rest of the world when for companies in many other places, including Zambia,24 it comes to diversity; are these global results perhaps Egypt,25 and Sri Lanka.26 driven by Europe? No. A recent academic paper looks at the performance of over 2000 frms in the United States Grant Thornton also shows a strong link between gender between 2000 and 2013, using a new technique to help diversity in corporate decision-making and the growth explain the diversity of fndings in previous academic prospects of businesses.27 They examined companies in work.18 The striking insight from this work is that for high- the U.S., UK and India, and concluded that companies performing companies, having women on the board is with women on boards and in executive management positively and signifcantly associated with better fnancial had better returns on assets in all three markets. Overall, performance.19 What that means, for people who aren’t the opportunity cost, or potential value sacrifced by statistics whizzes, is that having more women on boards companies with no women in leadership ranks, totaled can be a very good thing for fnancial performance, but $655 billion in all three markets. that it’s not enough to overcome other factors that make performance dismal at companies. That makes sense. There has been relatively little work done on the links If women were really some kind of silver bullet that between gender diversity throughout companies and overcame every other wrong decision and misguided fnancial performance, in part because data on frms’ strategy, it’s very likely that someone really would have overall employment diversity is largely unavailable. picked up that particular $20 bill, if it ever had been on Morgan Stanley did examine gender diversity in 108 tech the sidewalk to begin with. companies, and found that over the fve years ending in September 2016, those with better gender diversity The same theme comes out when we look at management (including percentages of women employees, executives, diversity. One study looked at executive team diversity in managers and board members) returned 5.4% more most of the US frms in the S&P 1500 between 2001 and annually than peers with less gender diversity. Companies 2014, and found that frms with diverse executive teams that employed more women at all levels had better returns

18 Martin Conyon and Lerong He, “Firm Performance and Boardroom Gender Diversity: A Quantile Regression Approach,” March 16, 2016. 19 Financial performance is measured by Tobin’s Q, the value of the frm’s debt plus equity divided by total assets. 20 Sharpe Ratio is the average return earned in excess of the risk-free rate per unit of volatility, or total risk. 21 Alberto Manconi, Antonio Emanuele Rizzo and Oliver G. Spalt, “Diversity Investing,” Social Science Research Network, August 16, 2017. 22 The S&P/ASX 300 index (ASX 300+) is a market-capitalization weighted and float-adjusted stock market index of Australian stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from Standard & Poor’s. 23 “Secrets to success of the ASX 300+,” KPMG Enterprise, 2017. 24 Bryson Mumba, “Board Gender Diversity and Firm Performance: An Empirical Analysis of Panel Data from Companies Listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange,” Social Science Research Network, November 2, 2017. 25 Malsa Ararat, Moataz El-Helaly and Nermeen F. Shehata, “Boards’ Gender Diversity and Firm Performance Before and after the Egyptian Revolution,” Social Science Research Network, July 1, 2017. 26 R.G.M.N. Rupawaththa and Welamedde Gedara Vishaka Gunasekara, “Do Women in Top Management Affect Firm Performances? Analysis of Public Quoted Companies in Sri Lanka,” Social Science Research Network, December 8, 2016. 27 Francesca Lagerberg, Grant Thornton, “The value of diversity,” September 29, 2015.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 4 than companies with similar levels of gender diversity in we don’t usually think of as being in the tribe. This is a place other sectors—something that bears repeating, in a period where the “no pain, no gain” advice has some traction. where gender discrimination is under the microscope for tech frms.28 Was it fun for the board of Nike to listen to its frst woman member, , exhorting the company to pay Morgan Stanley also weighed in on the value of gender more attention to the female athletic equipment market? diversity in 2016, taking a very comprehensive approach We may never know, but we can certainly imagine that it to what “gender diversity” means in business.29 That wasn’t. Judy Rosener writes about Nike’s and Conway’s approach included fve themes: gender diversity in journey in her book America’s Competitive Secret: Women executive ranks and on boards; pay equality; representation Managers, noting that the board took a while to warm up to of women at employee, manager, executive and director Conway’s idea that the company create a women’s division. levels; policies promoting equal opportunity and diversity; and work-life balance programs. The study found that “Initially her idea was rejected out of hand. companies with better gender diversity had better fnancial As Nike president Richard Donahue recalled, performance (return on equity) and lower volatility than “Our habit was to make a male product, color it less diverse peers, and that outperformance stretched over pink and sell it.” Conway kept arguing for a a fve-year period. Moreover, the top ffth of companies, in separate division run by women and targeting terms of gender score, had much better performance30 female customers. Eventually the board acquiesced, than peers, indicating that having better gender balance and by late 1993 the women’s division accounted was better for companies than a tick-box approach of for 20 percent of Nike’s domestic revenues.”33 having token women in decision-making roles. By May 2016, Nike’s revenues from its women’s segment THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY had revenues of nearly $6.3 billion, and the company 34 IN DECISION-MAKING announced plans in 2015 to grow that to $11 billion by 2020.

Yes, that’s an anecdote, and that is not the same as proof.

But it does comport with the results of real research, such If you take a quick trip through literature, both academic as a Harvard study that documented that teams with more and popular, on the value of diversity in decision-making, women on them outperformed teams with higher IQ scores a couple of ideas jump out. One is that diverse groups on a set of tasks including brainstorming, decision making, are smarter than homogeneous ones, in terms of solving and visual puzzles.35 problems and making decisions.31 People who bring different experiences, skills and backgrounds to group decision-making process force the group members to “The bottom line is that there are good, examine more alternatives, prepare better for decision- well-researched reasons why having more equal making, and anticipate different viewpoints. The variety of gender balance results in better outcomes.” ideas that come up in diverse groups is one source of this outperformance, and another is more careful information CONTRIBUTIONS TO SPECIFIC OUTCOMES processing that happens in more diverse groups.32

Being better at group decision-making and diversity i. Innovation doesn’t mean being more comfortable. It is often more difficult to reach a decision, much less a consensus, in a It is widely understood that the proportion of women in diverse group, and the likelihood of conflict is greater. In STEM felds is low, and making progress in evening the short, just because diversity makes for better decision- scales has been difficult and slow. So, we often tend to making doesn’t mean it’s more fun. Perhaps that’s one think of research and development (R&D),36 or the whole reason for the glacial pace of progress in achieving greater enterprise of innovation, as being a man’s world—and diversity in corporate executive ranks and boardrooms; the while it often is, there is evidence that gender diversity network of people we know, like and are comfortable with, brings value to it. just feels more convivial than groups that include people

28 Morgan Stanley, “Women Employees Boost the Bottom Line for Tech Firms,” May 3, 2017. 29 Morgan Stanley, “Gender Diversity is a Competitive Advantage,” May 12, 2016. 30 This was measured by information ratio, a measure of risk-adjusted returns. 31 Katherine W. Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientifc American, October 1, 2014. 32 Katherine W. Phillips, Katie A. Liljenquist and Margaret A. Neale, “Better Decisions Through Diversity,” Kellogg Insight, 2009. 33 Judy B. Rosener, America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers, (New York: Oxford University Press), 1995, pg 127. 34 Trefs Team, “Here Are The Three Key Growth Drivers For Nike,” Forbes, November 24, 2015. 35 Anita Woolley and Thomas W. Malone, “Defend Your Research: What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women.” Harvard Business Review, June 2011. 36 Research and development (R&D) refers to the investigative activities a business conducts to improve existing products and procedures or to lead to the development of new products and procedures.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 5 In examining whether diverse teams were better at enterprise of innovation going, but the risks are signifcant. producing innovation, and in particular, radical innovation The idea that women are more risk-averse than men (as opposed to incremental innovation),37 researchers is pervasive. But is it right? Not entirely, at least not in found that the probability of making a radical innovation the simplistic women-run-from-risk-while-men-live-on- increased signifcantly when the R&D team was more tightropes form. Credit Suisse notes that in their study of gender-diverse. That comports with the fndings of a 3000+ frms around the globe, women appear to manage paper that came out in 2015 looking at board diversity more for downside risk, rather than focusing on absolute and innovation, which found that frms with more gender- return as male managers seem to do.43 Firms with more diverse boards achieved greater innovative success.38 women decision makers tend to have higher dividend The two works focused on gender diversity in very payouts and higher returns on capital employed, which different places—R&D teams and boards—yet both “implies better returns for lower risk,” per Credit Suisse. found value in that diversity. This is consistent with the fndings that gender diversity on boards is correlated with decisions that add a hedging Another beneft of diverse teams resonates well for value premium and a reduction in risk.44 An earlier study innovation: more gender-balanced teams are also more looked at insolvency, a different facet of risk, and found likely to experiment and be creative. “At the heart of the compelling evidence that having more women on the innovation strategy are people prepared and able to work board is associated with a lower probability of insolvency collaboratively in teams and to exchange and synthesize for companies.45 knowledge from many different sources.”39 The quality of fnancial information can also pose a risk A study of the impact of women in top management to investors. It is well understood that companies can over a 15-year period found that having women in top manipulate their fnancial reporting—often called earnings management improved frm fnancial performance40 in management—in ways that make them appear healthier companies focused on innovation, in part because of the fnancially than they really are. A recent study showed ability of diverse groups to bring different perspectives that Spanish companies with more gender-diverse audit to the process of decision-making.41 Another part of committees had higher earnings quality: fewer errors, less that equation was that women tend to have some of the non-compliance or omission of information. Moreover, behavioral attributes in managers that are particularly higher percentages of women on these audit committees supportive of creativity and innovation: bargaining and and female committee chairs also was associated with negotiation, and coalition building and cooperation, greater transparency in audit reports.46 rather than domination. This kind of risk impact is echoed in sectoral work as well. ii. Risk Two studies looked at the impact of gender diversity in banking, a sector where risk management is particularly Innovation is, of course, only one source of corporate critical. One showed that having more women on the competitive success and only one parameter of investment boards of banks was associated with greater bank stability performance. So why focus on that? Because it helps to and lower nonperforming loan ratios.47 Another surveyed illuminate another area where perception and reality may the behavioral economics literature on gender diversity not match perfectly: risk. Research and development, and in senior leadership and risk taking in fnancial institutions, especially radical innovation, is generally thought of as and noted that while the literature is still a bit thin, it a risky enterprise. There’s a vast collection of literature appears that greater gender diversity does offer documenting the idea that most new products fail.42 When benefts in risk mitigation.48 they win, the success is spectacular enough to keep the

37 Díaz-García, Cristina; González-Moreno, Angela; Sáez-Martínez, Francisco Jose, “Gender Diversity within R&D Teams: Its Impact on Radicalness of Innovation,” Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, Vol. 15, No. 2, June 1, 2013. 38 Jie Chen and Woon Sau Leung and Kevin P. Evans, “Board Gender Diversity, Innovation and Firm Performance,” November 30, 2015. 39 The Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business, “Innovative Potential: Men and Women in Teams,” 2007. 40 Measured by Tobin’s Q. 41 Cristian L. Dezso and David Gaddis Ross, “Does Female Representation in Top Management Improve Firm Performance? A Panel Data Investigation,” Strategic Management Journal. 42 See, for example, Joan Schneider and Julie Hall, “Why Most Product Launches Fail,” Harvard Business Review, April 2011; Anne Fisher, “Why most innovations are great big failures,” Fortune, October 7, 2014. 43 Credit Suisse, “The CS Gender 3000: The Reward for Change,” September 2016. 44 Rubeena Tashfeen, “Board Gender Diversity and Risk Management: And a View of The Financial, Investment and Liquidity Policies,” July 17, 2016. 45 Nick Wilson and Ali Altanlar, “Director Characteristics, Gender Balance and Insolvency Risk: An Empirical Study,” September 22, 2009. 46 María Consuelo Pucheta-Martínez, Inmaculada Bel-Oms and Gustau Olcina-Sempere, “Corporate governance, female directors and quality of fnancial information,” Business Ethics: A European Review 25:4, October 2016. 47 Ratna Sahay, Martin Čihák, Papa N’Diaye, Adolfo Barajas, Annette J. Kyobe and Srobona Mitra, “Banking on Women Leaders: A Case for More?” Social Science Research Network, September 2017. 48 Kristin N. Johnson, “Banking on Diversity: Does Gender Diversity Improve Financial Firms’ Risk Oversight?” Social Science Research Network, October 10, 2017.

The Investment Case for Gender Equality | 6 Risk can show up in a thousand ways, including some that are sometimes cryptic. One of the subtler indicators of possible risk is earnings management, or the use of accounting techniques to create rose-colored glasses of corporate fnancial performance. Understandably, investors prefer to see corporate fnancial performance as it is, and quite a lot of fnancial analysis is aimed at penetrating the appearance of robustness created by earnings management to get at the true picture. From the Julie Gorte studies that have been done on the intersection between Julie Gorte, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President for Sustainable gender diversity and earnings management, it appears Investing and oversees environmental, social and that women’s greater propensity to monitor risk manifests governance-related research on prospective and current itself in accounting decision-making: women on boards investments as well as the frm’s shareholder engagement and women CFOs are associated with lower earnings and public policy advocacy. Julie is also a member of management, and higher quality earnings.49 the Pax World Gender Analytics team and the portfolio management team of the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s THE BOTTOM LINE Leadership Fund. Prior to joining Pax, Julie served as Vice President and Chief Social Investment Strategist at Calvert. Her experience before she joined the investment The lives we live, from perspectives biological, societal, world in 1999 includes nearly 14 years as Senior Associate economic, and fnancial, are driven by heterogeneity. and Project Director at the Congressional Office of Men and women together can do more, and do better, Technology Assessment, Vice President for Economic than either gender—or really, any gender—can do alone. and Environmental Research at The Wilderness Society, Program Manager for Technology Programs in the Often, the resistance to achieving better gender balance Environmental Protection Agency’s policy office and is driven by the unspoken fear, on the part of the haves, Senior Associate at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. She that empowering have-nots will diminish their own received her Bachelor of Science in Forest Management opportunities or wealth. The economic studies, as well at Northern Arizona University and a Master of Science as the fnancial ones, cited here show the exact opposite: and Ph.D. from Michigan State in resource economics. the world of economics and fnance is not a zero-sum game. We’re all better off when we all have equal access to opportunities, including the opportunity to make strategic decisions.

49 See, for example, Ferdinand A Gul, Bin Srinidhi and Judy Tsui, “Do Female Directors Enhance Corporate Board Monitoring? Some Evidence from Earnings Quality,” September 2007; Gerdinand A. Gul, Marion Hutchinson, and Karen M. Y. Lai, “Gender-Diverse Boards and Properties of Analyst Earnings Forecasts,” Accounting Horizons, September 2013, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 511-538; and Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan, John Chool Park, and Qiang Wu, “Gender Differences in Financial Reporting Decision Making: Evidence from Accounting Conservatism,” Contemporary Accounting Research, November 5, 2014.

The statements and opinions expressed are those of the author of this report. All information is historical and not indicative of future results and subject to change. This information is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

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